The Bispectral Problem

Although originally posed in the context of mathematical problems related to medical imaging, the bispectral problem is now closely related to other topics and has connections to many areas of pure and applied mathematics. The central theme of this book is the search for solutions to eigenvalue problems that satisfy additional equations in the spectral parameter, for example, pairs of eigenvalue equations. This problem, which looks very simple at first, has turned out to be both deep and difficult. Moreover, this concept of bispectrality has been shown to be useful in many active areas of current research in mathematics and physics.Following several years of exciting new results on the subject, in March 1997 the Centre de Recherches Mathematiques held the first scientific meeting devoted exclusively to the bispectral problem. Collected in this volume are contributions from the speakers at this meeting. The participants at this workshop included a majority of those researchers who have made significant contributions to the subject and many others working on related problems.